Dream social networks take spotlight at upcoming Science on Tap

May 16, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University researcher of
dreams will give the next Science on Tap talk on the social networks revealed
from sleep.

Richard Schweickert,
a professor of psychological sciences and a leading researcher in human information processing, memory,
mathematical models and dreams, will speak at 6 p.m. May 23 as part of
the Science on Tap informal lecture series.

"We often say we are unconscious when asleep, but
most people are aware of mental events throughout a night of sleep. Images
flow as people fall asleep and wake up," he said. "Early in the
night, when not dreaming, people mull over matters. Later in the night,
dramatic images appear in dreams, usually in Rapid Eye Movement sleep."

Occasional bizarre events may make a dream seem haphazard,
but regularity appears if dreams are combined from an individual over a year or
so, Schweickert
said. That regularity appears in links between people. So when two
characters appear in a dream together, they are associated somehow in the
dreamer's mind.

"We can make a social network by drawing a link
between two characters who appear in a dream together," he said. "The
social network for a dreamer has a form similar to a waking life social
network, but differs in some ways. A likely interpretation is that
regularity arises from consolidation during sleep of the dreamer's memory for
people."

Schweickert,
who has been at Purdue since 1978, received his doctorate degree in psychology
from the University of Michigan, his master's degree in mathematics from Indiana University and a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Santa Clara.

He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science and the Association for Psychological Science. Schweickert also is a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, Pi Mu Epsilon,
the Psychonomic Society and Sigma Xi, and is former president of the Society
for Mathematical Psychology.

Science on Tap, led by Purdue graduate students Patrick
Dolan and Becca Scott, provides Purdue faculty and collaborating researchers
the opportunity to share research activities in an informal setting with
presentations that are designed to appeal to a more general audience.
Attendance at the monthly event has averaged 80 during the program's first two
years.